Three AM Phone Call

Last night my cell phone rang at 3:03 am, ripping me out of sleep.  Deep, sweaty, rapid-eye-movement, body immobilized sleep.  In the first second of half-wakeful awareness, I was able to identify the fact that my phone was playing my mom’s ring.  My thoughts ranged through all the possible worst case scenarios that come with middle of the night phone calls.

My cat was dead.

The dog had been eating algae off of the coy pond across the street and was hit by a car on her way home.

My sister’s guitar amp had shorted out, leaving her charged with electricity, blackened and twitching on the stage of Mississippi Pizza.

(Aren’t you impressed with the amount of creative thinking I was able to do in 1.76 seconds?)

I sat straight up in bed, flipped open the phone and said, “Mom, what’s the matter?  Why are you calling me?  Do you really mean to be calling me?  Did something bad happen?”

She gasped and said, “Sweetie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to call you, I was trying to call your sister and I dialed the wrong number!  Go back to sleep.”

I flopped back down onto my pillows and mumbled, “Okay.  Love you.  Night” and hung up the phone.
I lay there for a couple of minutes, hanging half out of bed, waiting for my racing heart to quiet down.  Soon after, I was able to find the strands of sleep in which I had been wrapped before and soon was back where I had left off.

I guess that’s what I get for not calling her to say good night before I went to bed.

0 thoughts on “Three AM Phone Call

  1. Marisa

    Well, my parents and sister are in Oregon, so for them, it was only midnight. An almost acceptable time to make a phone call. My mom was calling my sister to tell her that South Paw Jones needed to sleep in the basement instead of the family room, because my mom’s friend Lusana was sleeping in the family room.

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  2. Sherri W.

    Actually, since your Mom dialed your number by accident, she coulda gotten that good night call from you and STILL woken you with a clumsy-fingered moment!

    But yeah, I’m impressed by the catastrophizing potential of that 1.76 seconds… 😉

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